Knowledge, attitude and practices about pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions among dental research assistants in a Turkish hospital: a cross-sectional study

Aim: This study was aimed to assess pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions knowledge, attitudes and practices of dental research assistants. Material and Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a teaching hospital at Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey, for one month. All the registered dental research assistants were invited to participate in the study. Data collection was carried out through the self-administered and validated questionnaire. The final data was analyzed by using SPSS version 21.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages have been determined. Results: The questionnaire was completed by invited participants with a response rate of 92.5%. Male (n=30, 60%) was more than female (n=20, 40%) with an average age of 27.44 (SD±2.32) years. None of the participants received pharmacovigilance training in the last 1 year. The majority of participants (60%) were unable to define pharmacovigilance and only 20% (n=10) of the dentists have correctly defined ADRs. The Most of respondents (90%) recognize ADR reporting as a professional obligation and sixty percent (n=30) perceived that the reporting of serious and unexpected ADRs are mandatory. The participants perceived that difficulties during filling of ADR forms, loss of timing and lack of information on pharmacovigilance are the main reason for the under-reporting of ADRs. Moreover, all dentists reported that they did not observe serious/severe ADRs, and 40% (n=20) reported not asking about ADR history while interacting with a patient for the first time during their practice. The participants had poor knowledge attitude and practice towards the pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reactions (P value